Close Call

I'd never heard this before. From today's Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1989, a mountain-sized a steroid passed within 500,000 miles of Earth. According to NASA, this was a very close call. It would have hit with the strength of 40,000 hydrogen bombs, created a crater the size of the District of Columbia, and destroyed everything within 100 miles in all directions.

I'm glad it didn't. 1989 was a really good year for me.